Fluid heater cleaner



, April 1944- c. L HOWSE ETAL 2,345,672

FLUID HEATER CLEANER Filed May 9. 1941 I INVENTORS (21/79: A, Hanna Patented Apr. 4, 1944 U N ITE D STATES PAT ENT O F 1 CE 2,345,672

FLUID HEATER CLEANER Curtis L. Howse, Birmingham, and William Joseph Fitzburgh, Detroit, Mich; assignors to Diamond Power Specialty Corporation, Detroit, Mich., a corporation of Michigan Application May 9, 1941, Serial No. 392,706

2 Claims.

This invention relates tofluid heater cleaners and more particularly to improvements in nozzles for discharging cleaning fluid at or adjacent the heat transfer surfaces to be cleaned.

Because of the much higher ratings at which boilers generally are being operated, mass blowing from retractible blowers having a single nozzle body is becoming more and more common. In the operation of such cleaners much difiiculty has been experienced in obtaining a satisfactory jetting of cleaning fluid. Improper jetting results in poor or'uneven removal of combustion residue from the heat'transfersurfaces, erosion of metallicyoizrefractory'partszand dissipation or waste of cleaning fluid pressure.

One type of nozzle body now commonly used for fluid heater cleaning has a single wide angle orifice through which the cleaning fluid is discharged. The jets from such orifices have very commonly a tendency to mushroom and, although the center of the jet may have an effective cleaning force, the outer edges are very apt to be weak and ineffective.

Another type of nozzle body has a central chamber from which a plurality of round or circular orifices jet cleaning fluid at various angles in difierent directions with no relation to each other, although each jet may be directed at a specific part of the fluid heater to be cleaned. Such nozzles have serious shortcomings one of which is that the fluid issues from the orifices in a beam form and spotty cleaning results. Another deficiency of this type of nozzle body resides in the fact that the cleaning fluid enters the individual nozzles at an angle and eddy currents are set up thus lowering the efiiciency of the jet.

Thus it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a blower nozzle member which will most eifectively utilize the available cleaning fluid. More specifically the object may be stated to be to provide a fluid heater cleaner which will throw a jet uniformly over a given area at a substantially uniform velocity.

Another object of the invention is to provide a nozzle body having a plurality of nozzles so located with reference to each other as to provide an effective cleaning jet covering a predetermined area uniformly thereby obtaining an optimum or a substantially optimum cleaning effect from the available kinetic energy.

A further object of the invention is to provide a blower nozzle body which will uniformly clean our construction 'will appear from a perusal of the following drawing and description.

Several preferred embodiments of our invention are disclosed in the accompanying drawing inwhich:

Fig iis a planview of our improved nozzle body,

Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation of Fig. 1, and

Fig. 3 is a sectional view of an optional construction.

Referring then to the drawing it will be seen that our improved nozzle consists of a hollow block Hl having a wall ll of substantial thickness. At one end of the block is an opening l2 through which the cleaning fluid passes to the interior through the Venturi throat portion l3. The block In is shown as having a tubular form but may be of any desired shape.

The end of the block In opposite the opening I2 is closed and has a cutout portion or discharge opening I4 which is divided by vanes l5 into a series of individual orifices or nozzles [6. The vanes I5 fit in slots I! in the wall H and extend well into the interior of the block. At their inner ends the vanes [5 are substantially parallel to each other and to the direction of flow of the cleaning fluid as it leaves the expansion throat l3. As the vanes l5 extend toward the opening l4 they are curved so as to gradually change the direction of flow of the cleaning fluid to the desired jet angle. This gradual change of direction of the fluid obviates the generation of eddy currents which do much to destroy jet efliciency in conventional nozzles where the fluid must enter the nozzles at an angle. The vanes 15 are also curved relatively to each other so that they form convergent-divergent sides for each nozzle it. Because of this divergence it will be apparent that the length of the opening l4 must be greater than the length of the chamber diameter immediately in front of the vanes [5. This arrangement results in a series of adjacent jets extending fanwise in the direction of the surface or surfaces to be cleaned. Inasmuch as each nozzle 16 has divergent sides and because of the expan-v sion of the fluid the separate jets tend to merge a short distance from the discharge surface.

Because the various jets must travel varying distances to reach the particular surface or portion of the surface which they are to clean, it has been found highly advantageous to proportion the inlet area of each nozzle lB to the distance each jet must travel. Thus where the distance of travel is short the inlet area is small and this area is increased proportionately as the distance each jet must travel is increased. In this way it is possible to attain an approximation of constant velocity at the different portions of the surface to be cleaned. We likewise provide that the discharge area of each nozzle H5v is no more than 20% larger than its inlet area.

Any :greater increase in this proportion results in over expansion of the cleaning fluid and consequent loss of jet efliciency. i

The nozzle block Hl may be constructed as shown in Fig. 3 with' a straight throat but the preferred form of my invention is as shown in Fig. 2 with the Venturi throat l3. Without the Venturi throat I3 over-expansion of the fluid upon leaving the nozzles I6 is apt to result thereby impairing the efficiency of both the individual and the combined jet. The addition of the throat 13 allows the greater part of the expansion to take place in the block I0 before discharged. However, in both forms the vanes l5 should be of substantial length except perhaps where the direction of the cleaning fluid flow must undergo a change of direction approximating 90.- In such locations the short vane It has been found to greatly strengthen the extreme edge of the combined jet.

It will be understood that will we have shown a nozzle having five orifices which will clean through an angle approximating my invention is in no wise limited thereto. The use of greater or fewer orifices to blow through a larger or smaller angle is fully within the scope of the invention.

What we claim is:

1. In a fluid heater cleaner, a nozzle body for discharging cleaning fluid adjacent a surface having areas at varying distances from said body, a series of aligned orifices in said body each orifice discharging a jet of said fluid adjacent a predetermined area of said surface, each of said orifices having an inlet area directly proportional to the distance the respective jet must travel from the outlet face of the nozzle body to said areas whereby an approximation of equal distribution of the energy of said fluid is attained at all of said areas.

2. In a fluid heater cleaner, a nozzle body for discharging cleaning fluid against areas at varying distances from said body, said body being hollow and having a plurality of vanes dividing the outlet end thereof into a plurality of orifices, said vanes being curved along their length and adapted to emit a series of jets of cleaning fluid onto one of said areas, the inlet area of each of said orifices being directly proportional to the distance through which said jet travels from the outlet end of said nozzle body to its area.

CURTIS L. I-IOWSE. 4

WILLIAM J. FITZBURGH. 

